Finding it difficult to be around children

[lior]

That sounds like I hate children... I'm finding it hard to be around children because I really miss my little brother, and generally being around a family.

I'm on the edge of tears recently because of this. I want the joy of playing with kids in my life. I want to tickle toddlers, sing to babies and teach 6 year olds about rainbows. More than that I'd love to take my 13 year old brother to a gig at Camden... it would make him so excited.

I work from cafes and wherever I go, there seem to be mums with babies or young children. I can't escape. Even now, children's voices are ringing out from behind me.

It's the worst when I work from my boss's house because our work room is where the kids do their drawing and homework, and there's kids stuff everywhere. Cute hair bands. Sweet little drawings. Books and colouring pens.

And I work for a company that's about school!

I really miss my brother. I'm not talking to him because he ends up being the go-between for my mother and I, and I don't think that's fair on him. I sent him one message today explaining this to him - I hope it doesn't make it awkward for him when mum interrogates him. I'm worried that any contact I have with him will make things difficult for him at home. It's been more than a month since I've been in contact with him, before today.

Every day is painful in some way. This is what's painful today. That and my whiplash.

(for anyone that doesn't know:
I was a real family girl, but I flipped a few months ago and couldn't take being constantly giving, listening, and supportive to my family members and in return, my own problems were constantly dismissed or belittled. Since then my interactions with them have been very negative ones by text and email, where they have been not taking on board things I've said, and have even tried to manipulate me. I'm in a fragile state and I've decided to put myself first and not talk to them, because anything they do say makes me feel worse.
)

[.Poppy.]

I'm sorry. It's especially awful when you are treated badly by your family - the very people who are supposed to love you no matter what.

Is there anyway you can have "secret" contact with your brother? Maybe a skype date when your mother is out of the house, or text messages? It's not necessarily right for your brother to have to lie to your mother, but at the same time it's not right for you to have to be apart because of her behavior.

I'm glad you're putting yourself first - that's important, so keep it up!

Sending good thoughts your way.

[lior]

I'm afraid of being in contact with him at all, because I don't know if she has made him promise to tell her about anything I say. I don't want to put him in a pressurised situation by asking him to go against her. She's a matriarch, god help you if you go against what she says. She might end up not talking to him for days. I don't want to make things harder for him.

He sent me back a very sweet message.

"Cool. Bit of a shame, but hopefully we'll see each other soon. Not a day goes past without thought about you, and I do miss you loads as well. Whatever it is you're doing or going through at the moment, I wish you the best of luck. Rock on, Tamir xx"

He's in the best rock band at school and favours the Gene Simmons pose for photos, hence the 'rock on'.

I'm worried that mum helped him write that. I don't fully trust that those are his words. I don't like the thought that anything I write to him will be seen by my mother. I don't want even indirect contact with her. It makes me skittish to think about that. It makes me trust my brother a bit less. And I know I don't know if he wrote this alone or not. I feel suspicious because I know he's done it before - relied on them for advice about what to write.

So I don't really want to talk to him, because I feel too suspicious. Maybe paranoid, but I feel like there is a big chance he is getting help from mum or dad to write back to me, and I don't want them involved. And yet I can't ask for him to not involve them because that might anger them and they might direct their anger at my brother.

So I'm stuck. I want to see my brother but even sending him a message makes me really anxious because of the possibility of our parents being involved. I don't want to risk flaring up my anxiety because it can make me want to hurt myself. But then not seeing him makes me cry because I miss him so much. I guess I'm choosing the sadness over death. Just until I'm well enough for anxiety to not send me into a death spiral.

[lior]

Having some more baby pangs today. I see babies and want to hold them... so badly.

I don't think it's just about missing my brother. I think it's about being close to something, in a pure way. I crave warm loving physical interactions, and what I have now doesn't fulfil that.

[kristaok]

I know what you mean... I don't have a lot to do with my family either, my grandmother doesn't even act like most grandmother's do. She was always abusive in a sense, its like in order to do anything you have to go through her, she has a certain pull, she's very.controlling,manipulative, and power/money hungry.

I too have a brother, he's older than me but I love him dearly, we talk on a daily basis through text. I hate knowing though that everything I say.probably goes to her. Even though I can't stand her gossipping ways I have to talk to my bro, he means too much. I just try to avoid her for the most part, but I'm all bro has... His dad, and our mom both died of suicide. His father which is not my dad died 20 some years ago, and just in 2011 our mom died. I feel like I got to be there for him ya know... Sometimes we just have to do things we don't like for the ones we love... Our mother was a good mom, even though he's older I still want to kind of be a figure for him.

[lior]

Aw babe. That's really tough. How old are the two of you?